A postman who has been raising money for grass-roots Yes campaigns by taking a month off his job to cycle from "Rome to home", yesterday crossed the Border into Scotland.

Today, Mark Coburn arrives in Glasgow at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, having raised at least £5000. That's "1421 miles on a bike for Yes", according to his Indiegogo fundraising page - though Coburn has estimated that when he gets home to Glasgow he will probably have done far more than that.

A charismatic postie with the gift of the gab, he did the trip with no GPS system and no maps - nothing to guide him other than the people on the streets, whom he would stop and talk to. Some parts of his journey took twice as long as they should have done because of all this chat.

Now and again he would be entertained by a local dignitary, or interviewed by the press, who were curious to hear from this messenger from the north.

Often he found that the people he met in Italy, France and Switzerland were not aware of the referendum soon to take place in Scotland. "It has not filtered into the press [on the Continent]," he says.

In England, they were a little more clued in. He says: "People have stopped me, and asked if my Yes is to do with the Yes campaign. I've just been honest with them, trying to tell them some of the arguments, trying to counter some of the rubbish that's been put out there.

"People were saying, 'It's entirely up to you guys. It's your decision, but we would be sorry to see it happen'."

At times, though, they seemed not to care about the issue - or even recognise the name Alex Salmond. England, he recalls, was littered with Ukip posters.

In the north of Italy, Coburn came across members of La Lega Nord ("The Northern League"), an independence movement which has tried at times to equate itself with the movement towards Scottish independence. Coburn, who was wary of the group because of its right-wing, isolationist politics, argued with them because they were displaying the Saltire and the Catalan flag.

He told them to take the former flag down, saying the two issues had nothing in common.

The idea of the trip came to him after the 2011 election, when it became clear there would be a referendum, and he knew he wanted to do something "big". It was only on a visit to Florence with his Italian wife that he decided what that would be.

Yesterday, on arrival in Dumfries, he went straight out canvassing in his Yes-emblazoned kit. This week he returns to work, but plans on canvassing every night.

"I am sad it's come to an end. I can't believe it," says Coburn. "I tried to do this as a positive thing for the Yes campaign. It's like, if I can do this, what can you do? How much are you willing to put in? You don't get people going out cycling for Better Together."